Joe Who?

Was Joe Biden’s nomination for Vice President – a pick elicited first by the criticisms of Hillary Clinton, then John McCain, for Barack Obama’s relative foreign policy inexperience – a shallow attempt to dispel the disparaging ‘naiveté’ narrative? Will Vice President Cheney, a man who has expanded the powers of the Office of the Vice President more than any VP in recent memory, be succeeded by a wall moth? Survey says: Yes.

In all but confirmed leaks, Obama is set to name his national security team – Gates, Clinton, Jones – on Monday. Obama’s highly anticipated announcement, notwithstanding any surprises, stands to seal the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman’s proverbial foreign policy coffin, and not a moment too soon, I might add (see: This whole ‘time table’ thing is boring me. Let’s partition Iraq!).

By way of Ben Smith, a spokeswoman for Virginia Republican Senator John Warner, the retiring Armed Services Chairman, sends word of Warner’s praise for Obama’s national security “triumvirate:”

The triumvirate of Gates, Clinton and Jones to lead Obama’s ‘national security team’ instills great confidence at home and abroad; and, further strengthens the growing respect for the president-elect’s courage and ability to exercise sound judgement [sic] in selecting the ‘best and the brightest’ to implement our nation’s security policies.

If Gates, Clinton, and Jones are, in Warner’s eyes, the “best and brightest,” what does the loquacious six term senator from Delaware represent? A necessary nuisance, more than likely. Obama’s soon to be named ‘triumvirate’ has relegated Biden to nothing more than a constitutionally mandated sycophant, a “yes man” whose opinions (and yes, he has many) will likely be disregarded by the above-mentioned heavyweights.

Biden, who once urged a paraplegic state senator to stand to his feet at a rally, earned a reputation as the wordiest man in Washington, but became increasingly muzzled by his Obama handlers after a series of significant – and humorous – gaffes. As if muzzling him for the cycle wasn’t bad enough, it seems his frequent off-the-cuff comments – a welcomed break from the drudgery that was my life for the last year and a half – have permanently landed him in the dog house. Let’s just hope his handlers forgot to re-muzzle him; we all need a laugh from time to time.